Turkey’s first military convoy enters Syria’s Idlib: Report

The first convoy of Turkish military forces has reportedly entered the Syrian city of Idlib to enforce a "de-escalation" zone in northwestern Syria as part of a deal with Russia and Iran.

There were around 30 military vehicles in the convoy, which entered Syria near the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, Reuters reported Thursday, citing eyewitnesses.

The convoy was headed to Sheikh Barakat hilltop, which overlooks lands controlled by militants as well as the Afrin area held by fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

Idlib and swaths of land in Syria’s northern and northwestern regions are largely held by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militant group, spearheaded by a former al-Qaeda affiliate that changed its name last year from al-Nusra Front to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

Tahrir al-Sham militants were apparently escorting the convoy along the way, the report added.

"The Turkish army convoy is entering under the protection of Tahrir al-Sham to take positions on the front line with the YPG," Reuters quoted a member of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) as saying.

Photographs published by Turkey's Anadolu news agency late on Thursday appeared to show Several Turkish military vehicles, ambulances and tankers stationed at a village near the country’s Reyhanli border gate opposite Syria’s Bab al-Hawa.

Establishing the de-escalation zone in the area was agreed upon back in May, when the fourth round of the intra-Syrian talks, held in Kazakhstan's capital Astana, resulted in an agreement on creating four such zones across Syria, with Russia, Iran, and Turkey serving as guarantor states.

The other three zones in Syria’s central province of Homs, in the Eastern Ghouta area of the southern Rif Dimashq province, and a southwestern militant-controlled stretch along the border with Jordan have sharply reduced the tensions.

Tahrir al-Sham has opposed the de-escalation deal with the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. However, its reported role in escorting a Turkish reconnaissance team last week indicated that Ankara had no plans to directly confront the group.

On Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country’s military operations in Idlib was the follow-up of the so-called Euphrates Shield operation in northern Syria, which Ankara launched in August last year without any authorization from Damascus.

Ankara said back then that the main objectives behind the operation were clearing Turkey’s southern border of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group and stopping the YPG from gaining more sway there.

Ankara views the YPG as the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group, which has been fighting for an autonomous region inside Turkey since 1984.